Direct current voltage generated in metallic layers by spin pumping

We report an investigation of the dc voltage generated in a normal-metal (NM) layer by spin pumping from an adjacent ferromagnetic (FM) layer under ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) excitation. The spin-current injected across the FM/NM interface by the spin pumping effect generates a charge current along the NM layer by means of the inverse spin Hall effect. Room temperature field scan measurements were made in a series of Ni81Fe19/Pt bilayers with several thicknesses of the FM and Pt layers. By varying the angle of the in-plane magnetization we are able to accurately separate the contributions arising from anisotropic magnetoresistance and from the spin-current pumped into the NM layer by the precessing magnetization of the FM layer. The data for the spin pumping dc voltage is in excellent agreement with a theory incorporating the full dependence on the thicknesses of the FM and NM layers. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3549582]